the Senate, was conducted to the eastern portico of the Capitol, the vast crowd met him in front of the colonnade; a crowd of citizens and soldiers who would willingly have died for their Chief Magistrate. It was touching to see the long lines of invalid and wounded soldiers in the national blue, some on crutches, some who had lost limbs, many pale from unhealed wounds, who had sought permission to witness the scene. As the President reached the platform, and his tall form, high above his associates, was recognized, cheers and shouts of welcome filled the air; and not until he raised his arm in token that he would speak, could they be hushed. He paused a moment, and, looking over the brilliant scene, still hesitated. What thronging memories passed through his mind! Here, four years ago, he had stood on this colonnade, pleading earnestly with his "dissatisfied fellow countrymen" for peace, but they would not heed him. He had there solemnly told them that in their hands, and not in his was the momentous issue of civil war. He had told them they could have no conflict without being themselves the 66 aggressors"; and even while he was pleading for peace, they had taken up the sword and compelled him to "accept war." Now, four long, weary years of wretched, desolating, cruel war had passed; those who had made that war were everywhere being overthrown; that cruel institution which had caused the war had been destroyed, and the dawn of peace was already brightening the sky behind the clouds of the storm.

Chief Justice Chase administered the oath.' Then, with

1. Two or three days after the inauguration, the author called at the White House, and Mrs. Lincoln showed him the Bible used by the Chief Justice in administering the oath to the President. The 27th and the 28th verses of the 5th chapter of Isaiah were marked as the verses which the lips of Mr. Lincoln touched in kissing the book. She seemed to think the text admonished him to be on his guard, and not to relax at all in his efforts. The words marked are these:

"None shall be weary, nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken. "Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, their wheels like a whirlwind."

Chief Justice Chase had given this Bible to Mrs. Lincoln so marked.

a clear but at times saddened voice, President Lincoln pronounced his second and last inaugural.

"Fellow Countrymen :-At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then, a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued, seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

"On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city, seeking to destroy it with war,seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.

"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offenses, which in the

providence of God must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern there any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Since the days of Christ's sermon on the mount, where is the speech of emperor, king, or ruler, which can compare with this? May we not, without irreverence, say that passages of this address are worthy of that holy book which daily he read, and from which, during his long days of trial, he had drawn inspiration and guidance? Where else, but from the teachings of the Son of God, could he have drawn that Christian charity which pervades the last sentence, in which he so unconsciously describes his own moral nature: "With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right." No other state paper in American annals, not even Washington's farewell address, has made so deep an impression upon the people as this.

A distinguished divine, coming down from the Capitol, said: "The President's inaugural is the finest state paper in all history." A distinguished statesman from New York said in reply: "Yes, and as Washington's name grows brighter with time, so it will be with Lincoln's. A century from to-day that inaugural will be read as one of the most sublime utterances ever spoken by man. Washington is the

great man of the era of the Revolution. So will Lincoln be of this, but Lincoln will reach the higher position in history."

This paper, in its solemn recognition of the justice of Almighty God, reminds us of the words of the old Hebrew prophets. The paper was read in Europe with the most profound attention, and from this time all thinking men recognized the intellectual and moral greatness of its author.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE APPROACHING END.

THE SANITARY AND CHRISTIAN COMMISSIONS.-SANITARY FAIRS.LINCOLN'S SYMPATHY WITH SUFFERING.- PROPOSED RETALIATION. REBEL TREATMENT OF NEGRO PRISONERS.-LINCOLN'S RECEPTION AT BALTIMORE-PLANS FOR RECONSTRUCTION.-THE PRESIDENT'S VIEWS UPON THE NEGRO FRANCHISE. CLEMENCY.

HIS

IN following the currents of great events at the capital and at the theatre of war, some facts of minor importance, but of great interest, have not been noticed. Among them were the great organizations for the relief, health, and comfort of the soldiers, known as the Sanitary and Christian Commissions. These organizations were novel, and indicate an advance in humanity and civilization; they relieved war of half the horrors and of much of the suffering incident to its destruction of human life. The tenderness and sympathy of the President with all forms of suffering was apparent in all his life, and the stern soldiers of the war often regarded his humane spirit as a weakness. They claimed that his clemency was often abused, and that his reluctance to inflict punishment interfered with rigid discipline. There were some grounds for these complaints.

When, therefore, in the summer of 1861, Dr. Henry W. Bellows, of New York, visited Washington, and laid before the President a plan for organizing the Sanitary Commission, he was listened to with the most careful consideration, and he found in Mr. Lincoln one as zealous as himself to

carry out his humane purposes. The project was to organ